Perfect
by jones2000
Summary: AU. VIII in the 'Cursed' series. The brothers are on a hunt for the perfect woman. The catch is that she's a succubus, a legendary seductress. Will Sam make a new friend? Can Dean keep his libido in check until they've solved the case?
1. New Case

"Oh, don't!"

The outburst was followed by a torrent of laughter.

"Yeah, you're sick and you love it." But she smiled as she said it. Natalie looped her arm through Gwen's as they walked home down the street, tottering a little as they fought to remain standing on their towering heels.

"I never said-"

"You didn't have to. It's written all over your face."

Gwen gave a lopsided grin. "So you don't mind, then?"

"Honey, why the hell would I mind? He's been all emo since Cindy dumped him."

"Made for great songs."

"Heh. Let's keep him in a perpetual state of misery. I like that."

Gwen laughed and took a step, her shoe catching on a crack in the sidewalk. She stumbled, and Natalie pulled her upright.

"You can't be _that_ drunk."

"Dizzy spells. Give me a minute." She met her friend's eyes as she straightened. "I had the dream again last night." She blurted.

The amusement faded from Natalie's face and she raised an eyebrow. "God, you're a miserable drunk, Palmer." She said sternly, hands on her hips.

"But-"

"If the world was going to end, wouldn't you think that someone, _somewhere, _would have noticed?" It was only then that she realised that Natalie was teasing her.

Gwen stuck her tongue out.

"Howzabout we go the long way. I can't see what direction you puke in the dark, anyway. These are new shoes."

"They're only shoes."

"They're good shoes!"

Smiling, Gwen followed a slightly swaying Natalie into the brightly lit street. Under the harsh lights and surrounded by laughter and the sounds of people gearing up for the New Year, the nightmare didn't seem so real.

_Nat, her best friend, blood trickling down her chin, her hand stretched out imploringly as a dark figure behind her drove a knife deep between her ribs and ripped her apart._

* * *

"Good morning, sweetheart." 

"Mmph."

There was the sound of bare feet crossing the tiles and an egg being cracked against the side of a pan. Sam refused to look up, because that would then mean he had to stand up, and he didn't think he could manage that quite yet.

"Ah." Dean smiled as the eggs began to sizzle. "Bless the landlady who buys too much on shopping day." He pulled a couple of strips of bacon out of a small plastic bag and slapped them down as well. "Rise and shine, Sammy!"

He was feeling good. Better than he had in a long time, in fact. What was the word? Re-energised. Sam had just stumbled in and crashed on the couch where he sat, not even bothering to take off his boots. Dean had come in, refreshed the salt lines and had even brushed his teeth before slipping under Mrs Potter's patchwork blankets.

Groaning, Sam unfolded himself from the unnatural position on the couch, which was several feet too short for him. "What time is it?"

"Quarter past nine."

Sam rubbed at his eyes before sniffing at the air.

"Are you cooking?"

"Yeah. Problem?"

"You _cook_?"

"Give me _one _reason I shouldn't." His tone was distinctly defensive, and even though Sam could have said many things, he backed down.

"I didn't know you cooked."

"What can I say? I'm a man of many talents." Dean splashed out two glasses of orange juice. "You really didn't think me an' Dad lived off beers and burgers all the time, did you?"

Sam was silent as he dropped into a chair. "Hm."

"What?"

"Now I _know _you're kidding me. There's no way Dad taught you to cook."

"Ha. Sausage?"

"Why not?" Sam watched as his brother piled up both their plates. He picked up a fork and reached for three slices of toast Dean had left sitting on the edge of his own plate.

"Where'd you get all this?" He began to cut his bacon into strips as Dean sat opposite, sipping his juice.

"Mrs Potter," Dean said. "Bought extra. Says that we fine young men shouldn't eat like the homeless."

"Even though essentially we are?" Sam replied. "Almost a week. This would have to be one of the longest relationships you've ever had with a woman."

"Funny."

"She likes you, you know."

"She's just what TV says a grandma is supposed to be." Dean said wistfully.

Sam smiled. "You know." He said around some bacon. "This isn't half bad."

"Always with the tone of surprise." His brother wrapped his sausage in a hunk of bread and bit into it.

For several minutes, the only sound was the clanking of cutlery against the plates.

"That hits the spot."

"Mm."

"So. What do we do today?"

"Well, nothing's come up yet, so I figure we sit around and watch cartoons."

"That would be good, but gosh, we did that yesterday."

"We could wash the car." Sam offered lamely. "Do the laundry."

All he got in reply was a flat stare. "What planet are you _from_?"

"Alright, hotshot. What's your plan, then?"

"Simple." Dean drained the last of the juice from his cup. "We comb the papers. Go poke around the usual places. See what ugly sonofabitch comes to the surface first."

"Dude, we've been doing that since Christmas wrapped." Sam knew that, Dean knew that, but the pair of them were still reluctant to move on from Mrs Potter's spare room. Not just because she insisted they join her for baked dinners every Sunday, but because the little blue-haired old lady made them feel included, part of something almost normal. Dean was right; she had treated them no differently to her own grandsons since they moved in.

Which _could _be a drag at times, admittedly. Especially when she demanded shrilly that they help her weed the garden or to bring in the washing.

"We could check out the library, too."

"Sure, whatever."

"You're bored, aren't you?"

"What? Me, bored?"

Sam shrugged. "You've never cooked before." He stated bluntly. "I believe I would have remembered such a miraculous and unlikely event occurring. Sort of like Hailey's Comet passing."

"Dude, _so_ not cool."

"Seriously, man. What happened to 'Sammy, I just wanna kick back and relax for a bit'?"

"Do you have to be right all the time?"

"No. I'm just never wrong."

Dean's lips thinned and his eyes narrowed. Once the look would have sent Sam scurrying in terror to hide under the blankets for a while, but now all he did was raise an eyebrow.

"This – this sitting still and doing nothing is –" Dean forced out. Sam remembered that his brother always had needed to be _doing _something, or he'd become destructive. During their informative years, more that one teacher had written letters for the boys to take home to John Winchester, singing the praises of Ritalin.

"I'm going crazy. And I'm taking you with me."

Judging by his tone, it was no idle threat. "Okay." With a sigh, Sam conceded defeat. "Let's go snoop around where we're not wanted and do some loitering in dark corners."

"That's the spirit." Dean sniffed. "Not until you have a shower, though."


	2. Gwen

It was a scrape to back the Impala out of Mrs Potter's residential drive, but Dean eventually managed it without grazing the paint off the doors. Eventually when the car was out on the street, Dean lent his elbow on the horn.

"Move it, Haley Joel!" He shouted out the window. "We got things to do!"

Sam slung his computer satchel into the backseat and opened the passenger's door. Over his brother's shoulder, Dean could see Mrs Potter peering out the door at them, and he waved.

"You have a good time, boys!"

"Seeya later, Mrs P."

The Impala smoothly merged with the flow of traffic that was crawling toward the centre of town. Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the traffic lights to turn green. "Dum de dum."

Sam was silent.

"You okay?" Dean glanced over at him. His brother was folding a piece of paper into ever-smaller sections, almost as if he concentrated on the movement of his hands, he could ignore the thoughts in his head. It was a nervous compulsion Dean noticed had started a few months ago.

Dean probably had developed a few nervy mannerisms himself, now. Though Sam never said anything if his brother held a stare for _too _long, gripped a knife _too _hard, let off a remark that was _too _casual.

They were slowly becoming mental cases. The thought was depressing.

"I found one."

The Impala inched forward a foot.

"Found what?"

"A death."

"_What_?" The car jerked forward a few inches as Dean accidentally hit the accelerator in surprise. "And you didn't tell me this before, _why_?"

"Had to check with the local paper to make sure." Sam said. "It could have been just a drug overdose."

"You know, Sammy, we're probably the only people in this place that would say 'just a drug overdose'." He smiled wryly to himself.

"Dude, the light's green."

"Oh, yeah." The Impala roared through the intersection. "You have my complete and undivided attention, kiddo."

_At least until the next song comes on. _With some difficulty, Sam unfolded the page he had been mutilating. It was a page from one of the newspapers that Mrs Potter had been collecting since 1968, which she had given to him.

"_Poor Greg and Jackie and the rest of that family."_

"_You knew them?"_

"_Little James used to come over and play with my Rex every Saturday."_

"James Higgins, 25, resident of The Point." He began, and although Dean's eyes were firmly upon the road in front of them, Sam knew he was listening intently. "If the paper's right, he died three days ago." _And we missed it. Completely flew under the radar._

"But-?" Dean glanced sideways. "You said it looked like a drug overdose."

"Yeah, I did. This guy, this _James_, was found in the bathroom of – of that nightclub place on Maple Drive, can't remember the name." He skimmed the small article once more, wondering if he could find it.

"That place with the blacked-out windows as you're driving in?"

"Yeah."

"Dead on the cold tiles of a place that could be an amphetamine lab. Kids, just say no."

"That's what I thought." Sam agreed. "Just some rebel loser who wanted to make a name for himself by going out with a bang, right? Only, there were no traces."

"Traces of what?"

"Of anything. He was in perfect health."

"Apart from the dead part and all."

"Yeah."

There was silence in the Impala for a moment.

"We have the weirdest jobs."

"I've got it."

"Well, if you've got it, I've got it too."

"No, no. The name of the club."

"Yeah? Spit it out."

"The _Guinness Bar_."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope."

"Okay then." Dean pursed his lips and swung over to the side of the road. As soon as there was an opening in the opposite lane, the Impala moved into a smooth U turn, taking the brothers back the way they had came.

"We're going clubbing." Dean said. "If the place turns out to be a gay bar, I hope you know I'm gonna leave you there to fend for yourself."

* * *

Dean's earlier description of a drug lab may have been closer to the mark.

There was a bar up front, an assortment of wooden tables and chairs, and, of course, the blacked-out windows. As soon as Sam walked in, he immediately regretted the decision to wear his Stanford sweatshirt as every head in the club swivelled to hold him in their cold stares.

Dean raised an eyebrow, cutting him a sideways glance. Sam understood the look as easily as if his brother had spoken the words aloud.

_Dumbass pledge._

Sam watched as his brother stepped forward and slowly met the eyes of each person in the club, hands still casually in his pockets. _I ain't scared of you. Step up and I'll show you who's top dog._ He wondered if Dean was even aware of the vibes he was giving off, or whether the show of false bravado was so deeply ingrained into him that it was now second nature when he was in a tight spot.

Eventually, each face in the bar turned away, back to whatever they had been doing prior to the door swinging open.

"Dude, you _suck_." Dean said. "A couple of guys in leather and you make like the proverbial deer in the frickin' headlights."

Sam felt he had to justify himself. "They were taller than me, Dean! A foot taller!"

The pair pulled out stools at the bar.

"What will it be, fellas?" The barman was short but muscled, like he had seen a few good brawls in his time. He might have once been good looking, but his nose had been broken so many times that it was squashed to the side of his face.

"Two beers." Dean answered. The barman nodded, pulled out a couple of glasses.

"Haven't seen you pair 'round here 'fore."

"Yeah, it's sort of our week off." Dean pulled out his wallet and laid some money on the counter. "I'm Dean. This is my brother, Sam." He crossed his arms on the countertop.

"Harley." But the man's hands lay by his sides, not reaching for the crumpled notes. Sam looked up and saw suspicion written all over his face. "You're not cops, are you?"

"What? Hell, no."

Harley visibly relaxed as soon as the words were past Dean's lips. "A man comes here and the first thing he tells me is his name, means he's a cop an' he's looking for something."

"They come here a lot?" Sam asked, keeping his voice low. He glanced at his brother. _Uh oh._

"Son, take a look around and tell me what you see."

Dean gave a wry grin. "Y'know, Harley, you're right about one thing. We're looking for information about the dead man in your toilets."

"You reporters? There's no conspiracy goin' on, you know. I've already had the _Weekly World News _breathing down my neck."

Judging by the look that flashed across Dean's face, Sam could tell that one of his lines had been nipped in the bud. "Why would the dailies think there's a conspiracy going on, sir?"

"Harley." The barman corrected automatically. "Peanuts?"

"Yeah, cheers." Dean said.

"Si – Harley?"

Harley wiped a rag needlessly across the counter. "Who are you people?"

"Just a couple of guys making some friendly enquiries." Dean said cheerfully. He couldn't have sounded more like an officer of the law if he'd tried. Harley straightened, his cheeks reddening.

"No ulterior motives here, no sirrie. Clean as a whistle, that's us." He puffed out his chest. "And you can put that in your report."

"Mister Harley, it is important that we get to the bottom of this before other innocent people are hurt." Dean put on his best responsible-adult voice.

The man sighed heavily. "Yeah. I guess." He peered up over his shoulder. "Hey, Gus. Cover me for five."

"What the hell for?" Shouted a man in a loud mustard yellow jacket.

"This pair wants to see the boss." And the way he said it left such an air of animosity that both Winchesters winced.

* * *

Sam and Dean lent casually against the wall near the speakers that were belting out _Highway to Hell._ Sam could tell that his brother was following the lyrics religiously. He nodded toward the industrial speakers. "Now _this_ is the way rock is supposed to be played."

"What? I can't hear you." Sam rubbed at his ear.

"Real cute."

"Dean and Sam?"

Sam heard the faint voice and elbowed Dean in the ribs to get his attention. A woman was standing near the empty stage in a pair of ripped jeans and a daggy top. "Hey." Sam said. "I'm Sam. This is Dean."

Dean grinned and shook her hand, but Sam could tell that he had dismissed her with a glance because she was too short, not blonde enough and not dangerous-looking enough for him.

"We're looking for the boss."

"So I've heard." She said as loudly, over the music, which was really beginning to blare out as the midday rush started to begin.

"Can we see him?"

"Depends on what you need to see _her _for." She replied sharply.

"Oh." Sam blinked. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"So you own this place, huh?" Dean lifted the conversation right out from under his stuttering brother.

"Looks like it."

"Cool place. Got real… atmosphere."

"You serious? The only reason I'm still here is 'cause no one wants the dump. My advice? Don't breathe in any of this 'atmosphere' you speak of."

A corner of Dean's mouth lifted in a grin. "Okay, I might have exaggerated the coolness a bit."

"Hey, that's the only way I can get customers. Feel free exaggerate. Dean, right?"

"Yeah, that's me. I didn't catch your name though."

"Gwendolyn Palmer. Gwen. This piss joint was the only thing my dad ever left me with aside from a truckload of debts, may God have no mercy on his soul. Harvey tells me you're here about the dead guy. You cops?"

"You think you'd still be open if we were?"

"I dunno. Dad had a few less than kosher friends in the force." She gave them a stern look. "You better not be reporters. We've had a flood through here already, eating and drinkin' my stock and scaring away my regulars."

"Is there somewhere more…" Sam trailed off. "Private we can talk?"

"Dude, what you see is what you get." Gwen answered, her voice flat. "Who are you pair anyway? If you say it's classified, I'll swear I'll boot the two of you out on your collective asses."

"Has there been a lot of people through here saying that?" Sam's brows knitted.

"A couple the other day. Black suits. Black Ray-Bans, the whole bit. Went through the whole plausible deniability, blah, blah, almost gave my boys a heart attack when they walked though the door."

The brothers exchanged a glance. _Calm, _Sam told himself. _Maybe it's nothing._

Yeah, right.


	3. Two

"Harley mentioned something about the _Weekly World News. _Why did they think there was a conspiracy going on?" Sam asked.

"You don't _know_?" she gave them an incredulous stare.

"We're new." Dean said.

"Every year in the week before New Year, three, maybe four guys die. Just drop dead, like that."

"Wow." Sam said. "That's one hell of a coincidence."

"You're telling me. And now it's come to my place." Gwen sighed.

"How long has it been going on?"

"Well, if the stories my grandma were remotely accurate, around fifty years or so. In the next issue it'll be chalked up to aliens, or a curse, or some shit."

"Jeez."

"And what's worse?" Gwen motioned to the bar area. "Half these creeps are only here to see where that doped-up kid kicked it." She spoke not as a young woman, but as a business owner getting shafted. "Locusts."

"That's a little harsh, isn't it?"

"Easy come, easy go." The woman dismissed. "Sometimes you have to play dirty."

Dean nodded. "I get that."

"Do you remember seeing the guy come in?" Sam asked. "Shortish, brown hair, blue eyes, leather jacket."

"Might've. I don't remember."

"Was he with anyone? A girl?"

"Yeah, I think he was."

"What did she look like?"

She shrugged.

"Could we see the video footage of the club the night he died?"

"I'm gonna have to see some ID first, gentlemen."

Biting his lip, Sam prayed he had automatically walked out the door that morning with one of his fakes.

"Here you are, Gwen." With a flourish, Dean flashed a warrant card for the NYPD. _Hey, at least he didn't bring out the PI one. _Briefly Sam wondered when someone was going to pull them up on their IDs, but banished the thought as he too showed his own warrant card.

Gwen's eyes narrowed. "If you're brothers, why do you have different surnames?"

Dean and Sam looked at each other. "We're… half brothers." Dean said, seizing on the idea. "Didn't' know we were related until I was sixteen. I still have doubts." His brother gave him a dark look.

Gwen stretched out her hand. "You mind?"

"Ah, of course not." Dean passed across his ID. '_What are you doing?'_ Sam mouthed across her head. He had the sudden thought that this woman was perhaps not the best person to hand a false warrant card to.

Gwen Palmer held it up to the light. "You know what I did before I owned this place?" She asked conversationally.

"No. What?" Dean frowned as the realisation occurred to him as well.

"I worked the front doors as a sniffer, to toss out the under 21s." She looked up at them, and although her face was shadowed with annoyance, there was also a gleam of triumph, knowing that she hadn't lost the first skill she'd learned in the club business.

_Finding people skiving off on a fake ID._

"Nice forgery though, kids. Could use a little more work on your backstory." She forced herself to smile pleasantly. "Now, let's start again. The pair of you are obviously over twenty one and therefore don't need to be sneaking into my place, so let's begin with who you people are."

"I-"

"Ah-"

"I see. I think it's time for you to go now. Before I call the real cops and they make even more of a mess." Spinning on her heel, she walked away amidst the strains of Britney Spears' _'Oops, I did it again'_.

They were back at the Impala before Dean finally spoke up. "She's made us."

"We need to see those tapes, Dean."

"I know, but… damn, a _girl_ made us."

"Is that admiration in your voice?" Sam asked curiously.

"Dude, how many years have we been living off these cards now?" Dean waved the ID in front of him. "The cops only traced us because I killed… because that thing that looked like me was killing all those girls."

Sam ignored Dean's slip of the tongue. He still didn't know to this day what Dean and Dad had been doing in those four years he had been at Stanford, and, truth be told, he wasn't particularly interested in finding out.

"What do we do now? Do we tell her the truth?"

"_Great _idea, genius." Dean said sarcastically. " 'Hey, Gwen, me and my brother were just passing through and we were wondering whether the dead guy in the toilets could have been killed by a monster.' Yeah, we could do that. Hey's let's also tell her that you're half-demon and I'm about to lose my mind and kill someone for real. I'm sure the kid will find that _very _reassuring."

"That's not funny." Sam frowned.

"It wasn't meant to be." Dean growled back.

It was only then that both brothers realised that the station wagon parked next to the Impala had four kids jammed into the back, and all of them were staring out the open window. Judging by their stunned expressions, each of them had heard every word of the Winchester's conversation.

"Oh…"

"Damn."

"Time to motor."

"Yep."

The sleek black car pulled out into the street.

"I want a car like that when I get old." The youngest boy said.

Later that night the four children, three brothers and their little cousin, would tell their parents all about the strange men, their strange car and the strange conversation, although the adults laughed them off and said they must have conjured these two mystery men to alleviate the boredom.

The only logical explanation.

And then baby Angus asked his mother what a demon was. Everybody got really quiet.

* * *

The music was loud and overbearing, the room was smoky and oppressive, and the lights kept flickering on and off, but this was the hottest place to be on a Friday night. Anyone and everyone were here, dancing the night away.

It was almost embarrassing to witness the drunken mating ritual of Man, Earth's ruling primate, _homo sapiens._

He would have still been home, possibly asleep in front of reruns of _Just Shoot Me_, if his brother hadn't crashed through his door and announced that he and his girlfriend and her best mate were all going clubbing, and, excuse me, would you mind putting on some pants and get your ass into gear because you're coming too.

That was it. No 'nice to see you, have you lost weight?' 'How've you been doing?' 'd'you wanna come?', just _get your ass into gear._

His brother. Two year younger, two inches taller, and a lot more successful with the ladies. He'd always gotten everything he'd ever wanted presented to him on a silver platter.

Not _him. _He'd had to claw and fight and climb to the top through a curtain of broken glass and shattered dreams, and when he'd finally reached the top of the summit, there would be his little brother with a grin and a six-pack, watching the football.

True to form, his brother and his brother's girl slunk of somewhere to hide amongst the haze, abandoning him and the friend to stand awkwardly by the mixing table. It was so obviously a setup that neither he nor she could bear to make a move.

_Kill me now._

Ten minutes later a tall blonde with Fabio hair sauntered over and asked her if she'd like to dance in that gallant way some men have, while managing to somehow say 'I'm doing you a big favour getting you away from this jerk' with only their eyes and a tilt of their head.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and whatever she had seen in his dour expression gave her confirmation that she'd hung around looking like an absolute dateless loser for long enough. Her parting stare clearly said that she wasn't sorry to see the back of him.

_That's it, I'm going home._ He stood, reached for his jacket.

"Going somewhere, stud?"

He squinted into the coloured smoke that was beginning to make him see spots dancing before his eyes. Then he spotted her.

She was perched on a stool by the bar, smoking a cigarette. She wore tight leather pants and a lacy shirt, her long, thick hair loose about her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and smoky and captivated him immediately.

_Please don't say I'm having a second-hand weed-smoke induced hallucination._

"Are you… talking to me?" He asked. _Please say yes._

"Who else, sweetie?"

_Yes!_

"How about you sit and talk to me for a bit, babe?"

He didn't need to be invited more than once. Sitting up on a stool beside this gorgeous female, he had to wonder why no other man in the vicinity was staring open-mouthed at her exquisite form and wishing they were him.

It seemed strange.

"You want a drink?" He asked, gesturing to the bar.

She blew out a perfect ring of smoke, like those screen sirens in the old movies used to do before they put the hard word on their man. "I've already had a few."

He couldn't smell alcohol on her breath.

_Dammit, if I wake up now, I swear I'm going to go completely schizoid. _

"How about we get out of here?" She turned to extinguish the cigarette in the ashtray, giving him a perfect view of the swell of her chest that peeped up over the low cut of her shirt. He found his mouth was dry and he was having difficulty swallowing.

"Get… out of here?" He asked tentatively, hoping that he had taken her words within the right context. "What… do you mean?"

"I mean, your place or mine?"

That was the last time anyone ever saw him again as he left the club that night. Or at least, that was the last time anyone saw him alive. His body wasn't found until his father and brother forced the door on his apartment after receiving a mysterious phone tip.

The club's video camera system had been down at the time, so people from the club were questioned about his last actions that night, and almost all who had spotted him reported that he had been with a woman, the most beautiful woman they had ever seen before. None of them were lying.

But all the descriptions of the woman were different.

* * *

The two of them had slept late once again. It was not a good habit to slip into. Dean rubbed his face to try and wake himself up.

Mrs Potter had pushed a copy of the local newspaper beneath the bedroom door. He picked it up and shook it out.

_NIGHTCLUB SEDUCTRESS STRIKES AGAIN._

"Sammy,"

"Hmn?"

"We need to get those tapes from Gwen Palmer now." He said grimly.


	4. Bonnie & Clyde

"At least now we have something to work with."

"Really. What's that?"

Dean held up the paper. "The murderer is a woman." He said. "And I quote, _'the most beautiful woman I've ever seen'_."

"Maybe it's just a coincidence."

"The same coincidence popping up for the last fifty years?"

"So you think it's definitely a job and not just an urban legend? Not just someone murdering these men in the same style as some wackjob several decades ago?"

"Hell, yeah." He nodded. "You see, you got names like Jack the Ripper that will live on in folk memory for generations, so the instant you kill the same way he did, you get some of the notoriety that he had. You take on the identity of some hick killer from way back when, you're just another psycho."

"I don't get it."

"People kill because they want to make a name for themselves, Sam." Dean said patiently. "They _want _a reputation, to be feared and placed on a pedestal by other nuts. To be remembered."

"Wow, that was… actually pretty well thought through." Sam decided he didn't want to know why Dean was convinced he knew why people emulated infamous killers. He watched as his brother rose and bent to retrieve his jacket from where he had flung it last night.

He pulled out Dad's Journal.

"What are you doing?"

Dean sat back down at the table, searching for something among the faded words. "I think I know what we're chasing." He said, faint wonder in his voice as if he too was a little bit surprised that it was _he _who hit realisation first.

"Yeah?" Sam raised an eyebrow.

Dean folded the paper so only the headline 'Nightclub Seductress' was visible. "All these dead guys have been lonely single men, right? You researched the known cases yesterday; any women ever been targeted?"

_Now you mention it… _"No."

He lay the journal reverently on the table between them. Taped to the page was an artist's pencil sketch of a beautiful woman with long hair and floaty robes, and…

"The bat wings add a certain old-world charm, don't they?"

Underneath the depiction Dad had labelled the creature in his messy yet steady hand.

_Succubus._

Sam rested his chin on his hands. Actually, that made a lot of sense the more he thought about it. "That would explain why none of the descriptions of the woman matched up." He mused.

"Does it?"

Sam pointed to another scrap of information in the book. Dad had summarised a passage from a Latin text and added his own footnote. _Will appear as perfection, everything you ever wanted. _

_Strongly advise against hunting one if male. _

"Dean, your idea of a good woman is going to be different to mine."

"That's painfully obvious."

"-And my idea of a prefect woman will be different than that to the guy down the street. Dude, this is why they all saw different people."

"It fits." Dean admitted. "We have to say it fits. Perfectly."

"What's up?"

"How many times have we cracked open Dad's journal after we defeated the bad guy and foundered about making an even bigger mess only to find out that the answers were under our nose the whole time?"

"Well, there was that one-"

"That wasn't a question, stupid. _Always _after, _never _before. That's the way it goes."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"We haven't done anything for almost a week now and suddenly the beginning, middle and end just shows up at breakfast?" He gestured at the journal. _Something screams setup. _"Doesn't that seem a bit… odd to you?"

Sam frowned. Dean was making a good point. "Dean, I know that you're maybe not the most… _Cluedo_-type person on the planet, but maybe this time it's going to be a nice an' easy one."

"Do you even _remember_ what happened the last time we thought it was a _'nice an' easy one'_?" Dean demanded. "Each time we think it's going to be a _'nice an' easy' _one, one of us get stabbed, or shot, or dies gruesomely-"

"I get it." Sam cut in over him. "You think that someone's out to get us."

"Don't be so paranoid." Dean scoffed. "Maybe she's just setting a trap for anyone that might be following her. I doubt we're the first ones to…" He trailed off.

"Dean, you okay?"

Sam's brother was staring intently down at the paper, his brow furrowed. He hadn't read the article completely before, and now what he had found prompted him to comb it for even the slightest clue.

"Dean?"

"Hey, listen to this. _'A search of the victim's apartment revealed two pistols -'_"

"This is America. Everyone carries a gun."

"Shut up. _'And three wooden stakes, one hidden in an additional pocket sewn into the lining.'_ I think our bad boy here was looking for some trouble and got in over his head." He tapped the paper, slowly looking up to meet Sam's eyes.

"So." Sam said slowly. "What first? Break into a crime scene or break into Gwen Palmer's for the video tapes?"

"Are you kidding? We break into the crime scene."

* * *

The place was cordoned off with police tape, yet there was only one officer at the scene, looking the other way. 

_This is too easy. _"Probably taking a doughnut break." Dean grinned. "Move it, Bonnie."

"How come I'm always Bonnie?" Sam hissed, swinging himself up onto the fire escape beside his brother. "Why can't I be Clyde for once?"

"Sorry, man. You just look like a Bonnie to me."

"I look like a Bonnie?"

"Yeah, with those big doe eyes and darling pout…you do know this conversation is absolutely whacked, right?"

The two of them were silent as they crouched beneath the window and watched the officer walk across the front of the door again.

"He's waiting for something."

"Probably forensics."

"Well, let's get in and out and try not to leave any bits of ourselves for any enterprising young Scullys to find." Dean checked his gloves, readjusting them across the knuckles.

"If this guy was a hunter, he would have hidden all his stuff pretty well."

"In which case all we have to do is think like a hunter." _Gee, Doctor Sam. I couldn't have possibly figured that out on my own._ "Shouldn't be too hard."

He hooked his fingers under the window, which had been left open a crack. It was easy to lever up, and Dean had to wonder how many times the guy who lived here had actually come in through the window rather than take the front door. He knew he'd done it a few times.

Sam's sneakers made no sound as they hit the ground. Dean's boots weren't much louder on the floor. He had scraped most of the mud and dust and blood off them so he wouldn't accidentally add more unexplained evidence to a crime scene where it was already painfully obvious that no one knew what was really going on.

No, he didn't feel like confusing anyone today. Which really said how much he had grown as a person in the last few years.

The room was sparse. TV. Bed in the corner. Fridge that wasn't even half-stocked. Cupboard. Papers scattered all over the floor, covered in some form of geek-speak. Computer code. Dean picked one up and stared at the letterhead.

"Check this out. 'Adrian Jones, purveyor of ancient artefacts'."

"Maybe it's just a flyer he picked up somewhere."

"'Dearest AJ, thanks for the tip. Helped heaps. Love, Miss Bela T.'" Dean read. "No, I'm pretty certain it's the same guy."

Sam's head snapped up. "Bela _Talbot_?" He hissed.

"Makes sense." Dean said grimly. "With the 'purveying' of ancient artefacts."

"Fantastic."

"I'm not exactly jumping for joy, either."

There didn't seem to be anywhere else in the room that anyone could have kept something hidden.

"Maybe we were wrong. This _Adrian_, if he knew Bela, he was probably into some heavy stuff."

"Man, are you saying he deserved it? I don't believe you, Sam." Dean took a menacing step forward.

The floor squeaked underfoot.

The brothers exchanged surprised looks before Sam crossed quickly to the door to keep a lookout as Dean hurriedly pulled up the rug. _Hey, the classics always work._

"Hurry up, we're kind of working to a deadline."

"Calm down, sparky." Dean ran his hands over the floorboards, finding the one that was loose. He rocked the board from one side to the other, working the nails out of the wood. Finally it came free in his hands.

He withdrew a pencil torch from a jacket pocket and shone the beam into the hole. "Damn, we've hit the motherload."

Several squad cars pulled up in front of the apartment block. "Dude, we're out of time."

"Mn."

"Now!" Sam went back over to the open window. "You move it now or I swear I'll leave your ass behind." He looked back in time to see Dean tuck something into his jacket.

"I'm coming."

The two didn't stop moving until they had walked back to the Impala, which had been parked several blocks away. "You get your answer?"

"I'm not sure whether this guy was completely legit, with his whole association with 'Miss T', but yeah, I have my answer." Dean replied, before pulling a dusty, leather-bound book from an inside pocket. Sam had to do a double take.

"That's a-"

"That's what I thought."

"You lifted a dead guy's journal?" Sam sounded morally scandalised.

"Oh, c'mon. It's not like he's using it." Dean rolled his eyes. He flipped to the last page that had been written on, and stopped, eyes darting quickly across the words.

"Dean?"

Dean held up the journal. Across the page, written in red ink, _at least Sam hoped it was ink_, there was a message.

_To those that stumble upon this journal:_

_You will not find me. Many have already tried, and they have all died. None of you will chase me from this world any time soon. I have a duty to fulfil, as much as you and yours do._

_May we meet one day in Hell,_

_Life._


	5. Deer in the Headlights

As Dean drove them back to Gwen Palmer's nightclub, Sam slowly flicked through the pages of the journal belonging to the thief Adrian Jones. "This guy," Sam said. "Seems to have started similar to the way Dad did."

"What?"

"His kid was murdered. The guy got obsessed."

"Oh."

"And when the thing was dead…" He flipped over a few more pages, pages that meandered off the subject of hunting and now seemed to be covered with squiggles and random numbers. "He kind of dropped off the radar, only to resurface again a few years later as the Purveyor of Ancient Artefacts."

"And met the delightful Miss T." Dean frowned, thinking. It would have been so easy for him and Sam to have done the same thing the moment the yellow-eyed demon was dead. Stopped hunting and started hurting because the driving force behind their crusade was gone.

_Would Dad have done the same thing if he lived? Once the demon was dead, what would he have done then? What else did he have then?_

"Dude, you gotta check out some of the maps he drew." Sam mused. This Adrian had carefully documented and outlined each expedition he and his companions _JMc,_ _GWP_ and _BT_ had ever gone on. Probably a habit he picked up when he was a hunter. Some of the places he had trekked to were positively extraordinary. If he hadn't been lying.

But why would he lie when he assumed that the only person to ever read the journal would be himself?

_And Sam had to wonder wether people just became thieves, or if they all had a backstory. A reason for becoming immoral and backstabbing. Did Bela?_

"What the hell was he doing here?"

"Has family here. It's New Year's Eve, remember."

"Maybe we should go see the family."

"First thing's first. We gotta get those tapes from Gwen. See if we can spot the girl."

"Yeah." Dean shrugged, still with both hands firmly on the wheel. "But there's a problem with the plan."

"What's the problem with the plan?"

"You said it before. If we look at the she-beast, she'll appear as different people 'cause our ideas of a hot woman are polar opposites."

"Yeah?"

"Wouldn't that work the same for video or photos? To keep up the ruse?"

"I'm trying to get us something here, Dean." Sam snapped. "You read Dad's journal, too. You saw what he wrote. Do not attempt to hunt if male. If we can't get around this somehow, we're screwed. Literally and figuratively."

He held up the message in Adrian Jones's journal. "She knows someone's onto her. How long before she finds out it's us? Comes for us? This Adrian must have been here for something other than a family reunion, and now he's dead."

"So what do you suggest we do? Go from door to door checking out each of the female occupants? Staking the one that looks different? We'll be old men the time we check out the whole town, and she could have split by then!"

"Could you keep your eyes on the road?"

"Sam!"

"Yes!" Sam retorted. "We'll do that if we need to. Is that what you wanted to hear? Keep your eyes on the road!"

Glowering, Dean hunkered down about the steering wheel. "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard." He growled. "And believe me, I know dumb ideas."

"I'm sort of making it up as I go along." Sam confessed quietly. "I can't think of anything else short of using one of us for bait. And that's too risky."

"Mm. Considering that they trap you, seduce you and screw you to death." Dean said lightly. "According to the lore. Then again, that might no be such a bad way to go. Not that I'm planning to go anywhere yet." He added hastily at Sam's expression.

"I'm beginning to realise why Dad underlined_ do not hunt if male_." He said dryly. "What he really meant was 'don't let Dean hunt one'."

"Cute. We could do a house-to-house thing. Peer in some girls' windows. It'd be just like high school all over again."

"We could do it, but it would take a while. Both of us would have to look at the woman to make sure she's a human."

"So we'd both have to check her out? Man, that sucks."

"You'll have to curb your downstairs brain for a while." Sam said. "It shouldn't be too hard to spot her though, since we both have definite types."

"No kidding. Sammy has a taste for the bad girls."

"I do not."

"Do too. Jess seemed to be the dominant woman. How about Sarah? A rebellious streak a mile wide. Madison? No one was about to tell her what to do. And let's not forget about little Meg Masters. Too bad she turned out to be a demon." Dean chuckled slightly.

"Yeah? What about you, big brother?" Sam shot back. "You pretend to be all that, hanging around the bad girls, disappearing for the night to show her a good time, not even able to remember her name the next day-"

"That's not true."

"When all you want to do is find a sweet girl and live the American dream."

"Kid, you got your wires crossed along the line somewhere." Dean scoffed.

"Cassie Robinson." Sam said instantly. "Sweet. Endearing. For some reason she liked you, the real you. That Layla chic, when you both were dying. Charming. You pair bonded on a level even I still don't really understand."

"All right, shut up now."

"Lisa from Indiana. Nice girl, asked you to stay even when she found out what you were." _Asked you to stay even when she found out what you were. Find a nice girl who likes you for you, and settle down somewhere, stop running, stop being afraid_…

Dean was looking awkward, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Sam stumbled to a stop in his teasing._ Sam had had four years to escape for a while, pretend he was someone else, while Dean was still living the nightmare._

"I'm… I'm sorry, man. That was out of line."

"Damn straight." Dean sniffed.

The two sat unmoving in the car even when Dean pulled up to a stop. "Gwen Palmer." Sam said.

"Yeah. Sweet, in a way." There was no sarcasm in his voice that Sam could hear.

"Dean?"

"Sam? What if it's her?"

"What? Dean-"

"I'm serious. The girl owns a nightclub and she's what, twenty-five maybe? She won't give us the tapes, she picks us up on forgery despite the fact we've used the same IDs on the police before, and she's kind of sweet."

"But-"

"And as a nightclub owner, wouldn't she have a record of all the other clubs in the area, her competition? And a death in one of those clubs would pretty much kill off all rival business. She said it herself that the place was in debt."

"So you're saying that she's killing those guys to keep her business afloat? That's insane."

"Sammy, we've come across people that sacrifice their pets to gods, and guys that keep their dead girlfriend's body in the basement."

"But why would she do that at her own business if she was trying to keep it from going under?"

Dean shrugged. "Adrian Jones was there last night, remember? Maybe you were right when you said he was into something heavy. Something she didn't want him to find out. So she took him out of the picture." He gave an evil little grin. "Talk about going out with a bang."

Sam shot him a stern glare as he got out of the Impala. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Just… don't."

"Don't?"

"The… jokes. And the innuendo. So not the time."

"The innuendo? Would I do that?"

"Dean…"

"You have to admit. He really came and went."

"I'm serious, stop it."

"Or what? You'll hit me?" The laughter was back in Dean's twinkling eyes. "Sam, you'll either laugh or cry, and I'm not the type for crying. Really."

"Are you ever serious about anything?"

"A few times. You weren't there."

Sam shook his head hopelessly as they locked the Impala. "So. What do we do now? She's shown she can pick a fake card, and if one of us walks back in there, we'll be the first ones she checks."

"Elementary, my dear Watson." Dean reached into his wallet and extracted a battered driver's licence. The plastic coating was still shiny and the colours bright. It looked like it had sat idle in Dean's back pocket since he got the thing. Sam could clearly read the name on the card. _Dean Winchester._

"No." Sam breathed.

"Yes." Dean replied evenly.

"You're insane."

"Very possibly."

"We can't use our own IDs! What if she calls someone? What if she's heard of us? We'll get arrested again!"

"All we need to do is get in, get the tapes, get out. Simple."

"Oh, 'simple'." Sam mimicked. "Are you even aware of what you're saying?"

"Yep. And then we also have to remember that the girl inside could be the succubus we're after."

"Are you packing?"

"Nope. You?"

"Nah."

The two brothers looked at each other and then down at the trunk of the Impala.

"Should we?" Sam asked.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any idea what would happen to us if we walked into a biker club armed? Within five minutes we'd be pulp, kid. I'm not kidding. I've seen it happen."

"So we go in naked."

"Should make things interesting." There were the mysteriously twinkling eyes again. Sam sighed in resignation.

"Okay. Let's do this."

* * *

Maybe two minutes after they crossed the threshold, the inevitable happened.

They got split up.

_Sometimes I swear Dean plans this._

Sam had flashed his real licence to get in this time, the only piece of plastic he possessed that had _Samuel Winchester _on it, and he kept expecting that at any moment he would be caught. He didn't know what was more disturbing, the feeling of dread in his gut or the fact that Dean didn't need to wave his ID under the bouncer's nose, but simply grinned and tossed his head in a 'come hither' motion.

_One day he's going to run into someone who isn't into the whole cute-and-dangerous thing he has going on. Then he won't know what to do with himself._

Sam looked up. A middle aged woman moved out of his way and he saw Dean directly across the room, talking to a couple of older men by the pool table. _Don't draw attention to yourself, _Sam inwardly begged.

Almost as if Dean had picked up on his silent prayer, his head snapped up and he stared back at Sam. He flicked his eyes across the room and Sam followed suit. There, supervising the setting up of the instruments for that night's live concert, Gwen Palmer was standing before the stage.

Dean flicked his eyes again, and his brother understood the message._ I'll distract her. You nab the tapes and vamoose. _Sam gave a short nod of the head and Dean looked away again, acting like he didn't even know Sam was there.

_Damn, we live on the edge._

He continued toward the staffroom door. Turning to make sure that none were watching him, Sam tried the doorknob.

_It's open._

No turning back now, he quickly slipped inside and closed the door behind him, begging that no one had seen him enter.

Gwen's office was separate from the rooms her employees used. It was small and boxy and another door at the end opened onto an adjoining storeroom. There was a pile of spangly outfits scattered across what must have been the woman's desk, as evidenced by the small, engraved plaque that read _Gwendolyn Winifred Palmer._

Sitting beside the nameplate was something he hoped was an elaborately decorated letter opener and not some sort of exceptionally nasty dagger. A door in the side wall lead out onto the darkening alleyway.

The surveillance equipment must have been also in the next room. Sam tried the door. This time it was locked, and he slipped a pick from his sleeve. After perhaps a minute under his persistence, the lock clicked and the door swung open slightly.

Sam automatically switched on the lights.

Boxes lined the walls, labelled clearly with the beverage or foodstuff that was contained therein. There were spare tables and chairs packed up against a back wall, along with several broken microphones and a speaker that someone had put his foot through. Nothing seemed sinister or out of place.

"Alright."

The security setup was sitting built up around a far corner. Sam bit his lip as he looked at it. What if it had caught him sneaking into the office? What if it had caught Dean chatting up the waitress while Sam waited patiently? And he made the decision to not only snatch the last hours of Adrian Jones's life, but the tape from the moment the brothers walked in pretending to be cops.

Sam sat down in a chair that would have usually been reserved for the security officer in more upmarket places. The system was computerised. Good! All he had to do was press a few buttons to erase any evidence that he and Dean had ever been there.

First thing first. Adrian Jones.

He accessed the system, half expecting to be hit with a password request, but oddly one never showed. Hunkering down, he prepared to get to work.

Steadily his frustration began to reach new heights. Several times Sam felt like smacking the keyboard at the insane way Gwen Palmer or whoever had designed the file system for the club, but finally he began to gain leeway when he found deep amongst the deleted items a video folder.

It was marked with the date of Adrian Jones's death. Followed by 'Do not delete'.

Sam clicked it open.

_This file has been removed with the authority of the police._

"Fine. I can get around…" As he attempted to access the computer's backup memory, another message flashed across the screen and blinked at him.

_This file is irretrievable._

"Aw, _man_." He did hit the keyboard this time. "Son of a _bitch_."

And although he knew the local cops were only doing their jobs, it did little to take the edge off his temper. As his brother had said a long time ago when Sam had rejoined the crazy hunting game, _they're doing our job, they don't know they're doing our job, and they suck at it._

Dean was not going to be happy. Several more keystrokes later, the record of their disastrous first meeting with Gwen was gone. His last action on the computer was to shut down the cameras. Hopefully no one would notice until he and Dean were safely out of the club.

He stood, exited all windows and tucked the chair back in, making it look like nothing had ever been disturbed. When he was happy with the placement, he went back into the office.

"Looking for something?"

Sam froze. _Proverbial deer in the frickin' headlights. Every time._


	6. Caught

Sam recognised her. She was one of the sound people that were working on the stage. An embroidered name badge on her black band tee shirt said _Natalie._ All in all, she was rather plain.

"What the _hell _are you doing in here?" She demanded. "Gwen is _so _gonna kick your ass." There was a slight edge to her voice that clearly said she would have found it highly amusing to watch.

"Er… I was just looking for… the… bathroom." Even to him it sounded pathetic.

She raised an eyebrow. "In a locked room. Marked 'Staff Only'. Dude, you've got to be kidding me." She stared at him flatly. "What the hell are you doing back here?" She repeated her earlier question.

"Well, I…" He looked down at his shoes and back up at her heart shaped face. "What are you doing in here?"

"Who are you?"

"Who are _you_?" He could tell by the look on the woman's face that that Sam was starting to try her patience, and something glinted in the corner of her eye, something… feral. Primeval.

"I'm Natalie. I _work _here. Unlike you, who seem to have no plausible excuse whatsoever."

There was clearly something strange going on. Here, in locked room, was a small female confronting a tall male and she wasn't intimidated in the slightest, even though Sam could have easily strangled her with his bare hands.

Her expression was so familiar, and Sam swallowed as he realised where he had seen it before.

_It was the same look Dean got on his face when he knew that he had outgunned his opponent._

The question was out before he could take it back. "What are you?"

She was silent for a long time before finally speaking. "I knew I would be found out sooner or later." She said softly.

_Crap._

"You're the – the succubus."

"It's rude to point."

Sam was confused. "But – you don't look –"

"Like this?" She looked up again, the feral glint in her eyes increased. Predatory. Long, fiery hair curled about her shoulders, her face suddenly beautiful and alien. "Like this?" She ran a finger up his neck, raising his head so she could take a proper look at him.

"I never wanted to do this, you know." The succubus said, and suddenly Sam couldn't control his own body. He could feel her, and the knowledge she was so close made his senses go wild.

His hands. He fought to keep his hands determinedly by his sides, when they itched to reach out for her. _Touch me. Take me._

The demon smiled as Sam struggled. _You shouldn't resist. Lose yourself in the moment._

She looks sad. So… sad.

She cocked her head to the side as she sat down on Gwen's desk, watching him struggle against himself. "Why can't you people leave well enough alone?" The comment was coldly detatched.

"Is that what you were looking for, Sam Winchester? I can turn it on and off, you know. We, and our brothers the Incubi can extract a single idea from a person's head, a single image. This face I'm wearing, it's what you people expect from a woman who works in sound engineering. No imagination, humans."

"How do you know who I am?" Sam wheezed.

The demonic woman shook her head sadly. "How many times have you asked that now?" She shook her head sadly. "You're famous. You and your brother and your dad. Even your mom, a bit. You better get used to it."

"What do you know about my Mom?"

All he got in reply was another pitying look.

"What do you want?"

"To do my job. Is that not also your motivation?" Her voice became deeper, more mature, less human. Even though she was a master of disguise, it must have cost her not to be able to walk about in her true form.

_Whatever that_ _may be._

"Your job? Killing people?"

"Is that not your job also?" She replied icily. The woman stood up and Sam flinched, sure that she was about to give him another demonstration of the succubus' power over male hormones. "You and I are not so different. In fact, the gap is closing all the time."

"I'm not a demon."

"I never said you were." The unspoken words 'not yet' hung ominously in the air between them.

"I kill. Only when they get in the way."

"Is that why all those people died?" Sam demanded. "Is that why Adrian Jones died?"

Instead of flinching or looking awkward like Sam half expected, the demoness frowned, taking the opposite path. "Who?"

"Oh, come on-" _It's like how Dean never remembers their names._

"I am not the one responsible for the deaths you blame on me. I do not _know _Adrian Jones."

"Liar." Sam hissed.

The succubus bared her teeth in a snarl. "If you are only going to insult me and accuse me of deeds I have not done, then I have no further use for you."

Sam gasped as he felt her reach out for him, lure him in, perfection once more. "Time to die, Sam." She smiled. "If it's any relief, it's going to be a damn slight more comfortable than the last time you expired." She was close now, their lips almost touching. "Much more comfortable." She purred.

The door slammed fast behind them. The succubus whirled, preparing to swiftly deal with the one that dared to disturb her while she was… hunting.

"Get off him, you whore." Gwen Palmer said flatly.

* * *

She let Sam go, eyes on Gwen, and suddenly his body was once again his own. "Go away, human." The demon called Natalie hissed. "Go back and entertain some more of those incompetent fools from the bank."

Sam could feel it, the familiar humming of the succubus' enchantments. Magic, even. Only this time it was not directed at him. For the smallest of moments, while her focus was on Gwen, the mask of the succubus slipped.

The demon beneath was revealed. Cold, colourless, withered, the antithesis of the romanticised image out of succubus lore. The knowledge was like a bucket of cold water on Sam's ardour, and he shook his head to clear it, as if waking from a long dream.

Gwen seemed to stumble a bit, but soon rightened herself. "Doesn't look like I swing that way, does it, Natalie?" She asked unkindly. "My _friend_."

"You knew. All this time and you knew." The succubus snarled.

"I had you exactly where you thought you had me."

And then the demon lunged, seizing Gwen and smashing through the fire escape in the side wall. There was a scream. Blood.

Propelling himself to his feet, Sam knew he should do something. Exactly what still eluded him.

And then he spotted Gwen's fancy silver letter opener. The one that curiously resembled a ritualistic dagger. He reached out for it. It felt good in his fist. His hand fit around the hilt exactly.

_Destiny_, a little voice spoke up in the back of his mind.

God, I hate that word.

_What about Dean?_

"Let him look after himself for once." Sam murmured aloud. _After all, with that Natalie gone, he's fairly safe._

The alley beyond the fire escape was dark and damp. Hard rock from the interior of the club blared through the walls, blanketing out every additional sound. Sam knew he had to find and help Gwen. Why, exactly, he was still unsure. He didn't even know the woman, who she was, what she wanted.

_The enemy of my enemy is my friend._

There was nothing. No sound. Then he almost stepped in the pool of blood.

_Damn._

There was a spatter trail right up the alley.

_Double damn._

Sam sprinted up the passage.

* * *

His brother never showed up at the meeting point, so Dean assumed that the kid had got his hands on the tapes and hauled ass out of there.

At least he _hoped _that's what Sam had done. He had tied his mobile several times, but got diverted to voicemail each time.

So, with not even one shard of evidence of the succubus' existence, or even his little brother, Dean slipped back into his car to drive his baby back to Mrs Potter's, where he hoped Sammy would be. God forbid if he wasn't.

The Impala seemed strangely empty without someone in the passenger's seat, nattering away in his ear about the monster-of-the week, or how he should take better care of himself, blah, blah. It reminded him too much of the times he went hunting by himself, launched into the middle of the fray, having to watch his front, back and flanks all at the same time.

Part of having Sam there weighed heavily on the sheer practicality of it all, of having someone there to finish the job if you fell over and couldn't get back up. But a lot of it…

Let's face it, if he was the only one there, all the more time he had left to mull over his own bleak thoughts and whatever screwed up, goddamn _fate it was _that lead him to continually sacrifice his life, his _soul_, for people who were just going to throw it back in his face at the end.

_Great. Now I'm getting all morbid._

"Sometimes I reckon I should have thrown myself of a cliff by now." He commented wryly to himself, patting the Impala's door fondly as he drove up Mrs Potter's drive. "What with all the shit I have to take, day after day… hi, Mrs Potter!" He shut off his wellspring of angst and waved at the old lady as she shuffled to the back door in her nightdress and dressing gown.

It was already going dark. Dean glanced at the sky as he got out of the Impala, brow furrowed. He didn't think they'd been _that_ long. Well, he had lost time before over the years.

"Hello, Dean." The old lady beamed. "And what did you do with that handsome brother of yours?"

Dean frowned, disturbing thoughts beginning to take form. "I thought he'd end up here here. We sorta went different directions."

"Sorry, honey. I haven't seen him."

"Oh, f-" Mrs Potter cast him a sharp look. "-fiddle." Dean finished a little lamely, so as to not offend the woman. _Different generations and all. _

"Are you sure you haven't seen him, Mrs Potter?"

"For the last time, sweetheart, call me Eve." She unlatched the back door. "Come in. I'll make you a cup of coffee and we'll wait for little Sam to make his way back. I'm sure he'll call if he's in trouble."

"Yeah, I hope so." Dean said grimly.


	7. GWP

_It sure gets dark quickly out here._

As he went he could occasionally feel the eyes of people on him, staring at him from the safety of their apartments. All of them too terrified to venture down and confront the wild-looking man in the alley with his wickedly curved knife.

_On second thoughts, maybe I should have grabbed Dean._

The blood trail stopped in front of an old warehouse. The sign said it used to be a manufacturer of furniture.

_Trap._

A woman's jacket was draped across the mailbox.

_Trap._

The door gaped open.

_Trap._

Sam picked up the jacket. It was wet and his hand came away red. "Damn." There was only one choice; he had to spring it.

A rat scuttled across the floor in front of him as he stepped into the building. Thankfully his eyes had already become accustomed to the darkness and it wasn't that hard to see around himself.

The place had been looted and trashed, panels missing from the walls and the large, industrial machines torn from the floors. Normally Sam would have snuck in, not making a sound, but he had to hone in on where the women were. "Gwen?" He called into the blackness.

"Gwen, if you can hear me, make a noise." Sam changed his grip on the knife. Another step into the darkness and he could see something slumped on the floor, dark hair across her face.

"Hey, Gwen, look at me," He knelt by her side and felt the pulse under her throat. It was erratic, but the girl was alive.

Sam stroked the hair back from her forehead. _Who are you? _"Hey, can you hear me? Everything's going to be fine. I'll get you out of her and everything is going to be fine."

Whether it was the steady calmness in his voice, or the strength of his body as he put his arm around her shoulders, something caused Gwen to stir into wakefulness. "That thing…"

"Don't talk."

"That thing has to die. Killed the others. They killed Adrian. And Jason." The woman curled herself up, arms about her knees. She was shivering, but not from cold. Gwen looked up at Sam. Through the blood he could see the feral glint in her eyes. The look he knew well, from both his brother and his father. Probably himself as well.

_Revenge._

"Get her." Her whisper was fierce.

"What do you mean, _they_?" Sam asked hoarsely, his hand tightening on her shoulder. Gwen couldn't, or wouldn't reply.

"Isn't it ironic?"

Sam spun. The succubus was slinking out between the benches, brushing cobwebs off her shoulder. On the floor, Gwen hissed like a cat. "Isn't it ironic?" She repeated. "You, sacrificing your life, willingly, for someone you hardly even know. And when it's done, they wont even remember you."

"How's that ironic?" Sam asked. The creature was in full seductress mode, long shimmering tresses and eyes that seemed to change size each minute. But for some reason, this now didn't affect him at all.

"Well, I was just thinking of your daddy and all, and how true the adage 'like father, like son'."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "What have you done?"

"What do you think?" She grinned. "Have a bit of fun. Night on the town."

"You're a cold bitch." Sam snapped.

"Oh, Sammy. Underneath all that youngest-son-unwanted-child angst and calm, you're as fiery, ferocious, and oh-so bad as your big brother, aren't you?" Her wicked grin grew even wider.

Sam didn't react. He didn't even bother. "Why are you here?" He rephrased his question, refusing to let her get under his skin.

"Are you really sure you want to know?"

"Yes."

The succubus frowned.

Sam changed tact. "Why did you kill Gwen's friends? What were you going to do with her?"

"What were _you _going to do with her?" She retorted.

_The enemy of my enemy is my friend._

"Asked you first." Behind him, Gwen struggled to rise, but her right ankle wouldn't heed her commands.

The demon smiled, hands behind her back. She took several sauntering steps forward. "A long and complicated story." She said. "You see…" She paused, and Sam felt like hitting her. "She has dreams."

The bottom fell out of Sam's stomach. "Dreams?"

"Mmhmm. Premonitions, one might say. Useful, I suppose, in her line of work."

"Line of-?"

_Adrian Jones' journal. His expeditation files. His companions. JMc, GWP, and BT._

_Gwendolyn Winifred Palmer._

The succubus watched his expressions as it fell into place. "Looking back, it seems obvious now." She said.

"She has dreams." _How can that be possible? Why is she still alive if she's…?_

"Dreams I could use. Don't look at me like that, darling. Not every psychic you pick up off the street is one of Azazel's children." Another haunting smile. "Unfortunately, some of her erstwhile companions were starting to cotton onto my scent."

"You were hunting them."

"Not them." Another wicked little grin, and Sam let out a shuddering breath, a horrible thought occurring to him.

"Me." He said. "You kill a couple of guys, make a bit of a mess, stir the townfolk up, and I'll walk right into a trap." He said with a defensive note in his voice, at the same time feeling stupid beyond measure that he didn't realise it before.

She battered her eyelids at him, a sweet smile on her face. "You?" She asked innocently.

A cold hand of fear gripped his heart. "Dean."

"Dean." She nodded. "You may be powerful, Sam, but as long as you have that one person who is willing to throw his life away for yours in a snap, it's a given that you'll never stay dead for long. Take away that security blanket, and it's open season on little Sammy."

"How… how did you know it would even be us that would come?"

"Gwen, dear, would you like to answer that?" The demon asked pleasantly. Sam glanced behind himself. The woman was looking uncomfortable.

"I dreamed it." Her back was straight and eyes defiant as she stared into Sam's vaguely accusing glare.

"And you told _her_?" He hissed, hardly believing her stupidity.

"Tell me what the hell I was supposed to do, then. This crap doesn't exactly come with a guidebook." She snapped back.

"Oh, children." The succubus flared her fingers. "Just to remind you both, this is about me, remember?" The demon smiled as Sam turned. She hit him, a solid punch to the mouth that sent him stumbling back into a wall of crates. The knife dropped from his hand as he was showered with wooden splinters.

The creature cracked her knuckles. "Honestly, I expected more of a challenge out of you, of all people." She flicked back a lock of hair. "I knew all along that Azazel must have been blowing his own horn. The man never measures up to the legend."

Sam snarled, blood dripping down his chin. Forcing himself upright, his back literally against the wall, he balled his hands into fists.

"Oh, how cute!" She crowed. "I wonder, just how long can you keep going? How long before I defeat you? How long before you're just a stain on the wall?"

"You could just do your hokey seduction trick. Charm your way out. That seems to work on nearly anyone." He growled. "Are you gonna kick my ass or are you just going to talk about it?" The remark was so Dean-ish that Sam wondered at himself.

"You don't know anything about me."

"But you know all about me?"

"Face it, you're a bona fide antagonist where I'm from. Little children go to sleep wishing to one day be the ones that take down _the _Sam Winchester."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "Why are you stalling?"

She smiled. As he watched, her mouth formed an 'o' of surprise as she looked down at her abdomen.

A silver point protruded from her stomach.

_The woman called Natalie, blood trickling down her chin, her hand stretched out imploringly as a dark figure behind her drove a knife deep between her ribs and ripped her apart._

Sam blinked, and lowered his fists, staring at the hand that was still stretched out before him.

Gwen had managed to scramble over to the dropped knife. Grasping it with both hands, she plunged it into the succubus's back. "Done." She said as the man looked at her. "Done."

* * *

The phone rang. Dean juggled his steaming cup of coffee and extra large piece of chocolate cake as he reached into his pocket. He flipped it open.

"_Dean, where the hell are you?"_ Sam burst out before Dean could open his mouth. Across the table, Eve Potter sent him a concerned look.

"Where the hell am I? Where the hell are you?"

"_Don't push me, man!" _His brother practically shouted down the line. _"Tell me where you are!"_

Any other time, he would have come back with a sarcastic remark to infuriate Sam even further, but this time he didn't. Sam didn't just sound angry, he sounded worried. And when a Winchester was worried about something, people usually got hurt.

"Chill, bro." Dean said soothingly, in the tone he used to use to coax Sam back to sleep after a nightmare, when they were both kids. "I'm sitting here with Mrs Potter having cake and coffee. It's cool, yeah?"

"_So you made it back okay?" _Something else emerged in Sam's voice, taking the coarseness from his earlier words. Relief.

It immediately set his brother on edge.

"Sammy, what's going on? You okay? What happened with you?" He asked, regardless of the old lady washing the dishes who was pretending not to eavesdrop, but was avidly listening to every word.

_The old girl will probably forget this ever happened in the morning._

"_I'm fine." _Sam said. _"I got Gwen here with me. Her ankle's gone kinda twisty."_

"You're with Gwen Palmer? Not the best idea, dude."

_"It wasn't her. She was-"_ Sam's voice drifted off as if he had been temporarily pulled away from the mobile, and Dean could hear a short conversation. An argument, even. 

"Yeah?"

"_Nevermind. We'll tell you when we come in."_

"'We'?" Dean put as much emphasis on the word as he could. "Tell me where you are. I'll come 'round and grab you. Maybe lend a hand."

"_No!" _The worry was back and Dean winced. _"Stay where you are."_

"Sam, what the hell-?"

_"Just… stay where you are 'till we get back. Please?"_

"Sam-"

"_Just do what I say for once."_

"Sam-" But the line had already gone dead. "Jesus." He jammed the phone back in his jeans pocket. _He should know by now what happens when somebody tells me not to do something._

But he _did _sound really worried.

_Dude, he's always like that._

When was the last time he really screwed up, though? Was really wrong about something?

_Well, there was that time where-_

Dean lent forward on the table, his head in his hands. Ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm getting too old for this." He murmured.

"Well, sweetie, what do you think I feel like?" Mrs Potter gave a friendly smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Her craggily hand patted his arm consolingly. "It'll be alright in the end."

He smiled sardonically. "Yeah, maybe, but I don't think it will."

_Not for us, anyway._


	8. The Succubus

"You killed her."

"Yes."

"You _killed _her."

"Am I speaking another language here? _Yes_!" With a sickly squelching noise, Gwen tugged at the dagger in the creature's back. It snagged on bone and Sam bent over to pull it out completely.

He handed it to the woman.

"You keep it." Gwen said, starting to feel queasy now she saw the demon's blood. It was as red as her own. Red and thick and pooling around the body.

"You okay?"

"I think I'm gonna hurl."

"Don't. We don't need to leave even more evidence for the cops to find." Reflectively he wiped the knife clean on his jacket.

Gwen was pale, her face drawn. "How can you do it?"

"What?"

"How can your people do this all the time?"

Sam had asked himself this very question many times. He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't really know."

"Then _why_?"

"I guess because… once you really _see_ what's out there in the dark, there's no going back. Something inside you changes forever." He bent down. Offered her his hand. After a moment of hesitation she took it.

"You said 'they'." Sam said quietly into the darkness.

Gwen hugged herself, her ankle quaking slightly beneath her. "They." She confirmed. "Two, at least. Adrian and I were the only ones in town. He used to be my History tutor." She smiled sadly at some long-ago memory. Sam stayed silent.

"We found evidence of demon activity. It was just a legend the town had when we were growing up, but now the yearly murders started again. Normally we would have waited for one of you people to show up-" Her eyes darted up to his face and then back down. "Then Jason was killed. The first murder. In my place, to tell me that it could come and get me any time."

"I thought the first murder was a guy called James."

"That was his name. Jason James McKenzie-Higgins."

"Oh."

"And we realised that this thing was gonna take us out too, right?"

"You were tracking it."

"Yeah. All the way back to Natalie. But since I was the only female there, we thought that maybe I should do all the up-close surveillance. Adrian wasn't too happy 'bout it, but went home. Next thing, I get a call saying he's in my club, and that there's two of them, that's why the patterns were irregular. Needs to talk to me now, he says."

She shook her head sadly. "The next time I see him, he's out cold on a slab."

"You have a car?"

"An imported Ford in the carpark a block back. Shouldn't we call this in?"

Sam spoke with the weight of experience. "No."

The duo made their way back to the carpark in the dark. Gwen's ankle was really no better, but she flatly refused Sam's offer to carry her all the way back to the car. Finally they made it to Gwen's car, a black contraption that Sam would have missed if Gwen hadn't tapped him on the shoulder and said 'there'.

"I'm driving."

The woman passed over the keys without a word. Sam looked down at them. There was a small pewter cross hanging off the keychain. "What I don't get." He said. "Is how she managed to create a whole life for herself."

"She works in sound engineering with bands." Gwen said. "The first woman in the company for years, she said."

Sam looked at her.

"I'm dating her… 'brother'. There's only Alex and his dad now. His mom died when he was only a baby, broke his dad's heart. The rest of the family is interstate. I suppose it would have been easy, a lonely man and his son."

"Yeah. I guess." Occasionally Sam had to wonder. If his dad _hadn't _gone off and become a crusader for the forces of good, would he have become one of these easily manipulated isolated old men?

He started the engine of Gwen's car. It didn't roar into life like the Impala did, but sort of spluttered.

"You need to get it to a garage."

"You tell me where I find the time." Gwen said. "Where are we going?"

"To my brother. We'll sort this thing out."

"You keep saying 'we'."

"Well, you're kinda stuck in the middle now, and right at this moment you're the only one with a car."

The conversation lapsed away as Sam pulled out into the street. _What I can't get, _Sam thought to himself, _is why I wasn't affected by the succubus at the warehouse. Could it be another thing left over from the Yellow-Eyed Demon? No, I was completely taken in at the club, so what…?_

"What?"

He must have mumbled something out loud without realising it. Another acquired trait that was potentially dangerous. "I'm just wondering."

"Yeah?"

"After you came in, I wasn't affected."

"You saw her true face." Gwen replied. "You saw the demon. After that, the illusion of perfection is just that, an illusion. She can't get one over you again, because part of you instinctively knows she's a fake."

"How do you know all this?"

"My mom killed one." The woman said proudly. She stretched her leg out and winced at the sudden shooting pain. "She walked in the room just as it was finishing banging dear old dad, and staked it right there."

_Adrian Jones had been a hunter before becoming a thief. Gwen Palmer was a thief who had a mother as a hunter. It occurred to Sam to ask about the Talbot family before they parted ways._

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." She said instantly. "I'm only sorry that it wasn't more painful."

"You really hate him." Sam said quietly.

"Mom had a reason for leaving me and my sister alone for days. I understood her reason, even if I didn't like it. The old man would just up and leave to go get pissed at the club. After the last big-ass fight with Mom, he even _slept _in the damn place. So, Sam, sorry if I offend your shiny set of morals by hating my old man." She crossed her arms and sank back into the passenger's seat. "You going to tell me now how wrong I was?"

"I don't think I'm the right one to be passing judgement on paternal relationships." Sam said quietly.

"Hmph." Gwen sniffed.

There was another moment of uneasy silence. "So." Sam cleared his throat. "Is there any other way we can track this second succubus? Anything?"

"Well, we could have gotten a confession out of the demon bitch back there, but it's a bit late now."

"And whose fault is that?"

"So-_rry­_ for stepping in and stopping her from making you into a Sam-pancake." Gwen shot back. She took a couple of deep breaths before speaking again. "My mom used to tell me that a succubus can take a single idea, a single thing a person wants, and disguise themselves-"

"Yes, that – woman – told me."

"-disguise themselves so completely that the person or people in question will never suspect a thing." Gwen gave a small, tired smile. "Get thinking, Sam Winchester. What do you want most?"

* * *

_Okay, this is a hard one. What do I value most in a woman?_

_Pretty girls. God, that sounds shallow. Healthy figure, not too skinny. Hair colour - meh. Makes no difference. She's got to be nice. And can put up with me when I'm in one of my moods. And smart, too. I want to be able to have a conversation with her, a _real _conversation._

_Strength. Some people are intimidated by strong women, but not me. Courage, but I guess that probably falls under 'strength'. She's not afraid to speak her mind. Not even to me. I'll probably need someone a bit stubborn, because someone needs to be able to say 'no'._

_Oh, and she can get along with my brother without falling for that weird charm he has going for him. It'd be good if they could be friends._

_Um, honesty, most of the time. Tact. Good judgement. _

_I can tell her about the real me, and not feel like a freak. Yeah, that's a big one. She likes me, the real me, and not some fiction I've created around myself._

_This is going to sound totally selfish and inconsiderate, but…_

_Someone who would look after _me_ occasionally._

* * *

"You look tired. Why don't you nip upstairs and have a bit of a lie down?" 

Dean waved his hand. "Thanks, Mrs P, but I've really gotta wait for Sammy."

"Really, if that brother of yours doesn't know how to look after himself yet at his age, then there's really not much hope for him."

He laughed out loud at that. "No kidding."

"You should really worry more about yourself."

Dean grinned. Since they had started lodging at Eve Potter's, that had become one of her most-used phrases. That, and _you're both really too skinny_ as she piled a second, and more often than not, third helping of food on their plates were her common remarks as she exasperatedly shook her head over them in a decidedly motherly way.

"He's been gone a while. Maybe I should go look for him. What do you reckon, Mrs Potter?"

"Mrs Potter makes me sound so _old_." The woman lamented, shaking her head sadly. "What I think is that you, Dean, should start looking out for yourself a little _more_ and your brother a little _less_. He's an adult, after all. I can understand that he's always going to be your little brother, but dear, it's not healthy."

Dean could almost hear the unspoken thought. _Let him pull his own ass out of the fire for once, son. _His maths teacher had told him that very thing when he was about sixteen, after Sam had broken a school window as he was going through his everybody-hates-me-I'm-alone-against-the-world pre-pubescent angst, and Dean had owned up to stop his brother getting suspended. The teach managed it so neither of the Winchesters ended up in trouble, so from then on Mr O'Neil was considered a pretty cool dude, apart from teaching _maths_.

The only problem was that after that, all the teachers at that school would look at them sympathetically and whisper to each other behind their hands. _Poor boys. Only them and their father, and he's hardly ever there with them._

Dean had lost count a long time ago how many times he had showed up at Sam's school functions because Dad couldn't, or wouldn't, attend.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you hold on too tight." The elderly lady said. "Little Sam is still all right with that closeness at the moment, but sooner or later that link is going to snap and you'll both end up hating each other for the rest of your lives."

He looked up at her, brow furrowed. "Wow, that was… pretty deep."

"I've had a very long time to think of things, dear." Her smile was a little bit sad, but very understanding. Dean appreciated that, the fact that she genuinely tried to make sense of it all. No one could really understand the depth of the bond between him and Sam, not even others that had brothers and sisters. Sometimes even the brothers couldn't understand themselves why they tolerated each other.

"Mrs P?"

"Mm?"

"Thanks." The word felt rusty and unused.

Eve Potter placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Dean absently gave it a pat.

And recoiled in horror, knocking back the chair he was sitting at.

The hand he had touched was no longer that of an old woman who had led a hard life. It was slender, pale, all the wrinkles and calluses smoothed from the skin.

He stared across the room wide-eyed, hardly believing what he was seeing. Not _wanting_ to believe what he was seeing.

_Fantastic._

Wrinkles and folds in the body and face slowly squeezed out leaving the skin beneath smooth and ivory pale. Grey hair darkened from the roots, and tumbled unbound down her back. Waist narrowed down. Lips plumped up. Dark eyes sparkled at him from under black eyebrows that were arched in a vaguely amused expression.

"Like I said before, everything will be fine in the end. Still, we _can _amuse ourselves in the time between now and then."

Dean took another step away. His back hit the china cabinet. "Whoa, Mrs Potter, I hardly think this is the time to be hitting on one of your tenants, do you?" He managed to stutter out, his hands searching behind himself for a weapon. "After all, Sam's gonna be home any minute now."

"That's fine." Her voice was soft and distinctly feminine, with a slight husky undertone. "Then he can join us, can't he?"

"Wait, what?" _Oh, you've got to be joking. _"I'm all for the kinks, lady, but that's gettin' a bit too creepy even for me."

She reached out a hand and touched his face. Her palm was smooth and cool against his skin. Dean wanted to swat her away, push her aside, maybe even bite her if he could, but his muscles had stopped responding to his directions. "How many times to I have to tell you? Call me Eve."


	9. Mrs Potter

She took a step back to look him in the eyes. "I've been wanting to show you my true self for a long time now."

"I'm flattered. Really." Dean's heart was hammering in his ribcage as he held desperately to his last scrap of resolve. She was so perfect, beautiful and enchanting.

Too perfect.

"Mm. Handsome, strong, and a little bit lost." Her eyes widened. "I've been waiting for _you_, for so long."

"Fifty years." Dean took another step back, into the living room. _Keep 'er talking. _"Why did you do it?"

"Long ago, when I was young." Eve said softly. "An old crone told me of the future. It was not until much later that I found out that she was of the Old Blood. Before I ripped out her throat, she gave me your name, but not the year of your birth." She cocked her head to the side.

"Someone had a vision… about me?"

_Great going, prophecy boy._

"I anticipated that you and your brother would follow the trail of murders to me. Therefore they had to be obvious without being ostentatious." She replied. "And like the little soldiers you are, you stumble right into my web."

And then she kissed him. Her lips were so soft and her mouth tasted so sweet as her fingers deftly dealt with the buttons on his shirt. Dean could only stand there, willing his body to be still, forcing down panic.

_Is this really how it's all going to end? Mm, could be worse._

"The witch-crone foresaw that we would be together." The nightgown pooled around her feet. Dean gasped. She was flawless, her skin alabaster in the darkness. He closed his eyes and shook his head, but the image of her was still in front of him.

"No. The lore-"

"Says that I'll kill you if you sleep with me? Poor fool." The insult sounded more of an endearment as the words slipped from her tongue. "Only if I choose to. Sometimes, when we find a worthy hero, we take a lover for more than a night. We might even choose to stay. I can give you everything you want." She whispered, pushing his shirt off his shoulders. "A home. A life." Her lips found his throat as her gentle hands wound down his chest, tracing scars in their wake.

Eve raised her face to his. "Kiss me." She commanded softly. There didn't seem any reason not to, so slowly, hesitantly, Dean bent his head to meet her.

There was a soft tug as the succubus swiftly undid the buckle on his belt. He was loosing himself in her kiss, fragments of images freefalling through his mind. She promised him the world, how, _why _would he refuse?

"Our son will be beautiful." Eve purred, spinning her final line. "Amazing and powerful. You can give him everything your father never gave you. Comfort, reassurance, stability, love."

_My father._

She stepped back to loll on the couch, opening her arms wide for him. "Come." She said softly.

Dean's breathing was laboured. _I wonder how many times she's done this before? _He willed his heart to slow, his head to clear. "My father…"

In her eyes, he could see. The future that he was supposed to be living. No more running. No more fear. "Come back into the light, where you were supposed to be all along." Eve encouraged. "Give our son the life your miserable wretch of a father deliberately _denied_ you." She watched as the muscles across his shoulders tightened and smiled in satisfaction. As she anticipated, there was a moment of hesitation before he lunged for her.

But as he lowered his weight on top of her, his hands found their way to her soft, pale throat.

Dean wasn't entirely sure if human strength was capable of throttling a demon, but he was damn well going to give it a good try. He bared his teeth down at her as his grip tightened. "_No one _insults my dad." He said down to her thrashing form. "He gave me everything he was capable of giving."

Breathless, the succubus brought her knee up into his groin. Dean grunted in shock, and his grip loosened. The woman bunched her elbow and brought the heel of her hand crashing up into his shoulder.

There was a sickening snap as she popped his arm from the socket.

Dean gave a wordless roar of pain as he rolled off her and onto the carpet, his back against the coffee table.

There was an iron candlestick sitting in the centre of the table. As the succubus was about to strike again, Dean seized it with his good arm and brought it crashing down onto Eve's unprotected stomach.

There was blood, but the demon still attempted to rise. Eyes blurry with pain, he swiped the candlestick across the side of her face.

Eve Potter stilled.

Dean dropped his makeshift weapon, his breath coming in short bursts as he clutched his limp arm.

The succubus was still breathing. Dean knew he should get up, find the stake hidden in his jacket, and nail the bitch while she was still out. But somehow he couldn't. It wasn't just his arm that had weakened him. The woman had somehow sapped his strength during their struggle.

He flopped back into an armchair, watching the woman breathe. Blackness obscured the edges of his vision as he nursed his throbbing arm. _I will not pass out, I will not pass out, I will not pass out-_

Maybe five minutes later, he was jolted rudely awake by the slamming of the front door and his little brother's shrill demand.

"_Please_ tell me you didn't."

* * *

Sam gripped his brother's upper arm with one hand and held his shoulder steady with the other. "Ready?" He asked. 

"No." Dean hissed through gritted teeth. "Just do it."

Sam twisted, and there was a wrenching pain. Dean let off a string of expletives that should never be repeated in polite society.

"Son of a _bitch_!"

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, his face creased with concern.

"I was almost screwed to death by an old lady, who, oops, turned out to be some horny mystical broad who decided to play rough because I didn't fuck her the first chance I got. No, Sam, I'm _not freaking alright_!"

For a moment his brother looked almost frightened. Still cradling his arm, Dean flopped back into his seat. All he wanted to do was sleep.

"We should put that in a sling." Sam said.

"Yeah, yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"What did you do this time?"

"I should have asked you to come around to pick us up. Because of me, you almost died." _Again._

"Sam, if you start on all the touchy-feely boo-hoo moments again, I swear I'll smash you in the mouth." Dean rested his arm on one of the lounge cushions. "It happened, I'm here, I'm alive, get over it." He looked up at Sam, who was standing over him, guilt splashed across his face. "What happened to Little Miss Gung-ho?"

"She's with the succubus." Sam frowned. It seemed so wrong now to call the creature Eve, or even Mrs Potter, for some reason. _Because then you're humanising what you're hunting._ "She's a regular little succubus connoisseur."

"Oh, goodie."

"Her mom was a hunter, Dean."

That got his attention. He sat up straighter, wincing at the shooting pains that raced up his arm. "You what?"

"She was tracking the first one. Her partner had found the second. Or should I say the second succubus found him."

"Her partner?"

"Accomplice, really."

"What?"

"I suppose you could say she's not our kind of hunter." Sam said guardedly. He knew for a fact that Dean didn't have much tolerance for Bela Talbot, so God only knew how he would treat Gwen.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You'll figure it out." Gwen Palmer limped back through the door. Her ankle was not giving her as much grief now she had managed to kick off her heels. Her eyes twinkled in amusement as Dean made a small movement with his good hand as if to hide his near-nakedness. "Don't worry about soiling my innocent eyes, Winchester. I've seen it all before."

Dean narrowed his eyes, a smirk lurking around the corners of his mouth. "D'you want to bet on that?" He asked smoothly.

"Dean!"

"What?"

"Do you ever just stop?"

"You're a prude." Dean shot back. "She's a good looking woman. Let's guess, you were boring the hell out of her on the ride back by talking about me, right?"

"No." Sam said stoutly, though his brother had more or less hit on the truth. Gwen gave him a sympathetic smile and thankfully didn't say anything.

"What have you done with Sleeping Beauty?"

"Still where she'd fallen." Gwen said. "Not awake yet, but will be soon."

"You drew the Trap?" Sam asked.

Apparently all the reply that remark warranted was a lazy raise of an eyebrow.

"Let's go say 'hi'." Sam said.

"I'll be right behind you." With a groan, Dean rose again from his chair, looking like he would have been happy to stay there and hibernate. _This insanity has turned him into an old man. _Sam and Gwen both looked back to him.

"What-?"

Dean indicated his bare chest and boxers. "Hello? Not exactly dressed for company, here. And there's no way in hell I'm going back near _her_ without any pants."

Grinning, Gwen and Sam turned away and stepped into the lounge as Dean clambered one-handed into his jeans. Several curses later, they both heard the sound of a zip.

"You need a hand back there?" Sam enquired seriously.

Gwen almost couldn't keep in her laughter.

"You can bite me." Dean retorted.

"Where would you like it?"

Dean scowled at Sam as he emerged from the kitchen, casting a dark look at Gwen for good measure. He'd fashioned his shirt into a makeshift sling until he could find something else, and Sam noticed for the first time how pale he looked.

"You're not going to let me forget this, are you?"

"Hell, no." Sam answered without a moment's pause.

"You're having fun, aren't you?"

"Well, at least when I got over the initial shock of seeing an unconscious girl on the couch, and you curled up naked smeared with blood. That was kind of a surprise."

"Yep." Dean sighed. "It's been a hellava day."


	10. Stalker

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She had read the scriptures, consulted the oracles, and never had she encountered evidence of this.

_Maybe they all refused to accept the promptings of fate for the moment, but soon that would come to change. It had been foretold. _They all call me crazy, but they will _all _see that I was the only one prepared; I was the only one still loyal to my lord, my _god._

_It was destiny._

"We know you're awake." The voice was male, cold and harsh. "Get up."

There did not seem to be anything to gain by refusing, so she did. Someone had tossed the nightgown over the top of her, none of them daring to approach the creature while she was awake. She folded her hands in her lap, not bothering to pull the material over her head. She was Succubus, and her body was her armour.

She could feel the Trap, the enchantment. It made her skin tingle. She knew she could step out of it and kill the three that had imprisoned her in an instant should she choose.

_Not yet, not yet…_

"What do you want?" She attempted to load the question with as much haughtiness as she could muster. After all, she was born of the Old Blood. The ones that came first, before the ages of religion and reason.

These _people _were insignificant.

_He _was there, nursing his arm that she had been reluctantly forced to damage when he had misguidedly attacked her. His face was creased in repulsion, and his distrust and hatred only drove to make her more determined. _He _would be hers!

There was another man there, one she did not recognise but knew who he was anyway. There was a familiar glint in his eyes. He too had seen beyond the veil.

The third was a woman. Her face was hard and her heart even harder. Her stare was cold with barely concealed contempt.

"Information." The man with the knowing eyes said. _He _opened his mouth as if to add something more, but apparently thought better of it and turned his face away.

"Ah. You must be Sam Winchester. A wholly formidable foe, or so it is said."

"I must be." He replied, not a hint of surprise in his voice that she had known his name. "I've been told I'm fairly popular. Your friend even said so."

He waited a moment for his words to sink in.

"I am here alone."

"We skewered her." The woman said flatly. "Some flouncy redhead who thought she was God's gift."

She stilled at that. Then a malicious grin slowly crept across her face. "She's dead?" She asked. She needed _confirmation_, dammit. Was it true? Was the bitch finally-?

"You did know her."

"I don't know how many times she's followed me. Tried to lead me from my _true_ purpose." Sam noticed that there was a strange edge to her voice. Something manic. Something unbalanced.

_An insane demon. Oh, what fun._

"Who was she?"

"My whore of a sister."

_Okay, maybe not the best of friends._

"Isn't it a little rich, _you _calling _her _a whore?" Dean asked flatly. Sam glanced sideways at him. All the humour had drained from his body to leave him serious and dour-looking. His blank expression reminded Sam so much of the late John Winchester that he averted his eyes.

The succubus twisted around to peer at Dean, and her demeanour improved immediately. Her back straightened and her eyes widened and all saw the bright glimmer within those inky depths. Adoration. Infatuation.

_Hallo, hallo. What's all this, then?_

Gwen glanced at Sam, Sam glanced at Dean, and Dean continued to stare stonily in front of him. "So your sister wasn't your favourite person."

"She wanted me to turn my back on my duty and return home. She wanted me to abandon my _destiny_. Sam Winchester, you know how had that is to do, when you have this small voice in your head all the time telling you what to do, how to act, _slowly driving you insane!"_

The kitchen light popped. Gwen's head snapped up to look back at it, but the brothers' gazes stayed fixated on the creature.

Dean scowled. _Driving you insane? You're already there._

"I do." Sam said softly. "I also know that destiny can be changed. I've done it."

"Have you? Have you _really_?"

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. The succubus gave a small, secretive smile. "What are you talking about?" Dean snapped.

The succubus sized him up silently. Finally she opened her mouth to reply. "It was prophesised."

"What was?" Dean spoke with an authority that Sam had never really heard before. Normally it was 'shoot first, ask questions later'. Something he would have undoubtedly done if his firing arm wasn't temporarily out of action.

"_He _was. Long before his birth, our tellers told of a great avenging angel. The one who would aid Our Lord Lucifer out of the darkness and into the light. Your kind know him as the Antichrist."

_Great. She's insane _and_ a religious freak._

"They were all foretold. The flight of the Old Blood, man's so-called dominion over the earth, your 'resistance', trying to stop us from spreading the word. _Read _your bibles, _research_ you ancient grimories, _analyse_ your age-old artefacts, and you will see that they speak of us, of fantastic beasts the likes of which will never be seen again." She lent forward, the fanatical, insane glimmer in her eyes once more.

"You and your kind. You claim to fight to keep your lands, your people, safe from us. Us who would see you in your graves. The Above is the dominion of men, the Below reserved for us, the Old Blood. But you refuse to see what is so very obvious to the rest of us."

The creature twisted her words around, making new truths out of them. A web of deceit. Sam tried to hold onto the thought that every word that left her mouth was a lie, so he would not be tempted to wonder…

"This is our Utopia. _We_ were here first."

Dean stood. There was fury written across his face. "I'm going to kill her." He informed Sam and Gwen sagely. "Right now."

"You will not."

"Oh, really?"

"We are much the pawns of fate as your brother." She stood nose to nose before him. She would not back down. He would see reason. "I was not lying when I told you of that long-ago vision. Your existence was prophesised. As the Protector, you have an important role to play. You will both be received with open arms."

Dean laughed. Sam noticed that it wasn't his normal laugh, it was something darker. Bitter. "Somehow I very much doubt that." He told her seriously. "We've made too much of a mess among your demon buds to be popular."

"Perhaps not at first." She told him, not taking her eyes from is face. "But in time they will learn how to appreciate and accept it as the natural order of things. This was my calling."

"What was?" She beckoned him close, refusing to answer if Gwen and Sam were able to hear.

Whatever she whispered in his ear must have completely horrified him, because Dean couldn't get back quickly enough. "Kill her." He whispered fiercely.

"My sister was a fool. She underestimated you, and that ended in her death." The succubus said. "I, however, am equipped for any emergency."

"Looks like you're pretty screwed to me." Gwen remarked.

"Cover her." Dean barked.

And that was when the creature brought her foot down on a loose floorboard. The board lifted smoothly away from the floor, tearing the carpet.

Breaking the Devil's Trap.

Gwen, Dean and Sam reacted at once, snapping to attention and reaching for weapons. However, the succubus was faster. She flung her arms out wide, shattering glass and spinning furniture across the floor.

Dean saw Sam go down, before he was hit from behind with a little cement cat that had been sitting on the bookshelf. His eyes swam as he was bombarded by shards of glass. _Get up_, his instincts were screaming at him. _Get up._

The succubus woman was standing over him. "Well." She said.

"Well." He echoed emptily.

"I'm not finished with you yet."

"I'd be surprised if you were. Don't wait too long, I might not be around that much longer." He retorted scathingly.

"Oh, you will. I will have you yet. Beloved."

* * *

"I never really thought I'd end up going like that." Dean said offhandedly. "Though I always kinda hoped." 

That pulled a reluctant smile from his brother.

"I wouldn't feel too flattered that she wanted you." Gwen Palmer, resident succubus expert, said. It was an icy morning, and she had wound her scarf all the way around her neck. Sam had pointed out that it was not a very good idea, because it would have been easy to strangle her from behind.

Gwen told him to butt out and mind his own business.

"I'm not, believe me." Dean said dryly. "It was weird. Weird and _wrong_."

Her glance twinkled with amusement. "You're lucky you had something to anchor you."

_Yeah, thanks Dad._ Dean didn't reply.

"What would have happened?" Sam asked.

Gwen rubbed her hands together. "What you'd expect." She answered. "What exactly do you know about the lore?"

Sam shrugged. "What all our sources say. The succubus kills the men she-"

"-screws," Dean added helpfully.

"And that's all?" Gwen blinked.

"I guess I'm just more familiar with her male counterpart. The Incubus."

Dean grinned, but mercifully stayed silent.

"Well, you got your Incubus, right?" As she spoke, Gwen unconsciously made little gestures with her hands to emphasise certain words. "Wandering around, ever so sexy, latches onto some poor girl, seduces her and knocks her up."

"We know the lore." Dean said. As a child, he had been fascinated with the succubus/incubus lore. They were demons, yet appeared as human perfection. He remembered his dad once saying that they had a better grasp of human weaknesses then most other creatures.

"Yeah? Well, let me enlighten you to the two finer stories I've come across." Gwen said. "One that I've encountered a few times now says that the succubus and the incubus are actually the one and the same. The succubus harvests… sperm from men before switching into the incubus and… passing it onto unsuspecting women. Sort of demonic cross-pollination."

"Ew."

"I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing _that._ Thanks. Thanks a bunch."

"Wait, it gets better." The woman said dryly. "Version two, and the most common legend says that the incubus and the succubus's sole function is to get something pregnant, human or otherwise."

"Heard that."

"Yeah, I bet."

Sam's brow furrowed. "Hold on." He said. "If the incubus makes the woman pregnant, and vice versa for the succubus, then sooner or later these kids are going to be born."

_I do believe this is one of our stranger conversations._

"Give the man a prize." Gwen said.

"Holy crap. Gwen, that means-"

"Yeah. No kidding." She agreed.

"You pair of eggheads might be jumped up on the great secret, but I'm still trying to catch up here." Dean cut in. "What?"

Sam looked at him sternly. "Instant demon spawn."

"Half human demon spawn." Gwen added.

"What?"

"Come on, Dean. We both know it's been done before." Sam slyly touched his own chest as he spoke.

"Yeah, but… dude, you weren't born that way. That… yellow-eyed bastard-" Even though both brothers knew the demon's real name, neither of them had ever managed to bring themselves to use it. "-did all that stuff to you when you were still a baby. We're talking about people who were actually born part demon." Blinking, he realised what he'd just said and turned to say something to Gwen.

The woman waved her hand at him. "Man, I know all about Sam's big secret, you don't have to look at me like that."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Just checking. A lot of folk weren't too friendly when the news came out."

"Yeah, well. What am I supposed to do about it?" She shrugged. "You are what you are."

"I guess." He replied reluctantly. "And back to the matter at hand. I can get how someone can be turned into a demon, don't get me wrong. It's all been-there-done-that. But a kid that's been deliberately bred that way, and will be that way their whole life, half monster? Sorry, guys, it's just a little too…_ Buffy_ for me."

"Eh, we all need a little more whimsy in our lives." Gwen shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I know, so you boys can watch out for each other. A half-human demon? That's going to be the most efficient killing machine out."

"And the most unstable." Sam added.

"Great. Freaking brilliant."

"Are you sure you're alright?" Sam suddenly asked.

"What?"

"You've been all moody-weird since the crazy bitch demon got away."

Dean shrugged. "Eh. It's just… when she… touched me, I saw things."

"Saw things? What things?" Sam wheedled.

"Faces. Voices." He gave an odd pause. "I think I saw Dad."

His brother's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "You had _visions_?"

"My mother," Gwen spoke up. "Would tell me that sometimes when you're close to death, the veil between the worlds can be lifted."

"Near-death experiences." Sam said.

"What, the light at the end of the tunnel and all that crap?"

"Maybe." The woman said. "Maybe it's like the stories say. You'll see the place you're destined to go."

"They were all there." Dean said, looking down. "Dad. Pastor Jim. Caleb, and most of the others. They were all inside and I was outside looking in, like there was a party going on I wasn't invited to."

"Most of the others?" Sam asked quietly. "Who wasn't there?"

Dean met his brother's eyes. "Mom."

Several minutes of silence passed, and then Gwen cleared her throat. "Well, thanks for helping out, I guess."

"Helping out? Sammy _totally_ saved your ass."

"If he hadn't have blundered in and made a complete_ boob_ of himself, I would have been just fine." Gwen replied crisply. Sam had to reluctantly agree with her consensus.

"Yeah, whatever. Hey-" Dean reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. Tucked beside Dad's journal was the one belonging to Adrian Jones. He withdrew it and offered it to her. "Here. For old time's sake."

For a moment Gwen blinked furiously. And them she held up her hand. "No." She said. "You keep it. It'd be a bit too gruesome memento for me." Her face brightened. "And maybe there's something in it you two haven't covered before."

"Um, thanks." Dean dropped his hand, looking unsure. Gwen smiled at him, before shaking Sam's hand like an everyday work colleague would.

"See you around." Sam said.

"I hope not." Gwen replied honestly. She started to walk away, but spun back, looking like she wanted to say something more, but not sure what. "There's a double page in there." She said finally, pointing to the Journal. "Covered in numbers."

"I've seen it." Sam said.

"They're all his contacts. Maybe they can give you a hand with things, if you can crack his code."

At that, she did turn and leave, back into the club. The door closed behind her.

"Code." Sam mused.

"Maybe he anticipated his death." Dean said.

Sam glanced sideways at his brother. "Are you going to be all temperamental and pensive now?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Afraid I'm intruding on your territory?"

Sam shook his head. "It's not easy, you know."

"Doing what?"

"Having a twenty-four hour target painted on your back."

"Sam-"

"I heard what that creepy bitch said to you. _You will be mine._ Dude, this is some seriously messed-up stuff we're dealing with. More than usual. I mean, man. You've got a full-on phantasmal stalker."

Dean looked pensive for a moment, as he lent on the Impala's open door. "Yes." He said slowly.

"Is that all? 'Yes'? What if she disguises herself as one of your one-nighters? What is she gonna do to you if she finds you? What about if she finds _me_ instead?"

"Dude, she's not gonna touch you." Dean said flatly.

"What, 'cause you'll protect me?" Sam said snidely. "You're not always going to be around!"

"I know. Because she said something else." He sighed. "Something about me and you."

His brother stiffened. "What did she say?"

Dean met his eyes over the top of the Impala. His answer was grim. "That there are still demons out there loyal to Yellow-Eyes that want to see the master plan through." His voice lowered.

"She said that the only way you'll ever go completely dark side is if I go badass first."

"And she's going to try to do it." Sam's throat suddenly went dry.

"Said it's her job to make me evil." Dean gave a twisted little smile. "Said she wouldn't stop until I was_ her_ boy."

Sam didn't know how to reply to that. The duo sank into the Impala and Dean reached forward to switch on the radio before starting the engine.

_Valentino's in a cold sweat, placed all his money on that last bet  
Against the odds, he smokes another cigarette  
Says that it helps him to forget  
That he's a nervous wreck_

_Its not that he misses much  
Or even that he's lost his lucky touch  
Its just that he gambles so much  
And you know that it's wrong_

* * *

**A/N**

I regrettably don't own Supernatural; Sam, Dean, or the Impala.

The thieves Gwen Palmer and Adrian Jones are mine, along with the delusional succubus Eve Potter and her erstwhile sister known as Natalie.

The lyrics of **Waiting for an Alibi **belong to Thin Lizzy and anyone associated.

The **succubus **is the female form of the more widely known Incubus, who is known for impregnating woman as they sleep. The first story Gwen mentions about the succubus/incubus being the one and the same creature is true, though I took a little artistic licence when embellishing why the incubus/succubus wants children.

And in case you missed it, the succubus became Mrs Potter by hiding herself in (what I believe would be) the brothers' subconscious desire to have someone look after them, instead of the other way around all the time. A mother figure would cut too close to the bone, so grandmother instead.

Thanks to all that read and especially to my consistent reviewers.


End file.
